BHP Billiton ( BHP), the Australian company that is the only industry player to be opening new mines, is down 20% so far this year, and the company's Web site is now emphasizing work on oil and sustainability.

The industry has seen this coming from a long way away, and has been doing all it could to prevent it. Producers have been advertising the idea of "clean coal" since 1921, the framing shifting with the times.

For that, you'll want to go to Kemper County, Miss., where Southern Co. ( SO) has put $4.3 billion, some of that government money, into turning low-grade coal into gas and selling the carbon dioxide to oil drillers for use in fracking.